mapachestudioshttps://mapachestudios.org/
Otro sitio más de volantínMon, 14 Jan 2019 01:13:02 +0000en-UShourly1The Revolution will be All-Ages or won’t be at all.https://mapachestudios.org/2014/11/21/la-revolucion-sera-all-ages-o-no-sera/
https://mapachestudios.org/2014/11/21/la-revolucion-sera-all-ages-o-no-sera/#respondFri, 21 Nov 2014 17:49:35 +0000http://mapachestudios.org/2014/11/21/la-revolucion-sera-all-ages-o-no-sera-2/This year we gain participated in the Comics Liberation Day in Espacio Shazam. We didn’t take any pictures and this article is a bit overdue. Still, we wanted to share the reflection that came with the short release we gave away this year.

The Comics Liberation Day (the Mapache version of the Free Comic Book Day) has become a personal commitment. We set out to do it every year and this was no exception. On this occasion we put together a beautiful little publication with a chapter of Elisa y Los Mutantes, along with a loose interpretation of the El Viudo character from Futuro Esplendor, both comics written and drawn by the Mapache team. Covers were illustrated by El Gran Rod and they are cool as heck.

Ever since we started giving away comics once a year we’ve wanted to include a reflection about Comics Liberation (whatever that means).
We believe this year’s reflection is quite interesting and want to share it with you.

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE ALL-AGES OR WON’T BE AT ALL:

“I’m a simple man with complex tastes.”
– Calvin (Calvin & Hobbes)

Hot dog factories don’t care about vegetarians.
Nowadays, the counterculture makes inroads into old horizons, tearing down the extravagant walls it locked itself into, to discover a tender universe where free thought was never a sin; where ideas are soft and simple, and sprout like mushrooms. Where god’s inexistence has already obliterated satan, leaving man overwhelmed before the spontaneity of his own acts. It is a good time. It’s windy up here … on the edge of apocalypse.

Theodore Roszack used the term counterculture to define and understand the 60’s cultural revolution and its attempt to create a new society by opposing the prevailing cultural system.

A comprehensive social movement rallies against all taboos imposed by power and is set aside by the latter into the adult literature section. Not like hadn’t happened before, but still that generation of thinkers and creators should have overcome that subtle barrier that separates children from the rest of the world. Capitalism was not going to give away its children so easily. Next to that barrier there is a machine that can turn any revolutionary idea into a Monkees feature film, and all who cross must necessarily pass through it.

It’s been a long time and we have become McDonaldized. Television has set aside children. It knows that by producing little it spends even less, and that hypnosis is quite effective. Movies compensate their lack of content with special effects and artistic affronts trained in the art of dropping jaws and closing minds. All efforts made by the underground to cross the barrier set by capital crash against censorship and content classification. The countercultural message is transformed into “adult only” material.

The biggest issue here is that we play along, creating inside this imposed ghetto and trying to build a new world from a secluded corner. That’s precisely where counterculture has lost its strength, by forgetting one of its fundamental principles: construction.

Under this scenario, a silent revolt starts knocking on the door.
We’re coming for your children…

A few days ago, an article by Kate Leth on the “Comic Alliance” website proposed the following:

LGBT (Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender) content can and must be for all ages.

The author proposes a cultural struggle by taking our comics with LGBT content and putting them next to Garfield at the bookstore. This way, LGBT themes, which were never exclusively for adult readers, will be available for children who can and may need to identify themselves with these marginalized realities.

Curiously, today’s children’s comics attempt to win over adult audiences. Here’s where we strike back. We attract children with stories that might shock the religious conservative, but never the 6-year-old girl who might be surprised, but never scandalized.
We have realized that our comics can deliver a rebuttal to the power’s cultural upbringing, striking at the root of the issue instead of waiting for adolescence to guide us into these wild paths.

This way we can gain ground on Batman, destroy Barbie’s beauty standards, shatter Hannah Montana’s teenage soap opera, smash the patriarchy and demolish the castles built by monarchical narrative (no more princes or princesses); building, from below, the seeds of a new culture.
Let’s break the stupid myth they want us to believe: that because we think or feel in a certain way, we are not children, which is the same as saying that we are not human.

]]>https://mapachestudios.org/2014/11/21/la-revolucion-sera-all-ages-o-no-sera/feed/0Beverly Hills Raccoon 3https://mapachestudios.org/2013/06/25/un-mapache-suelto-en-hollywood-3/
https://mapachestudios.org/2013/06/25/un-mapache-suelto-en-hollywood-3/#respondTue, 25 Jun 2013 02:57:36 +0000http://mapachestudios.org/2013/06/25/un-mapache-suelto-en-hollywood-3-2/We went to Comic Con 2013 and had a great time… but there’s a nagging thought in our heads. What can we say about this? Uh…

There’s a lot of talk about comics industry in this shoddy country: talk about the enormous output of local comics, inquiring creators, moronic authors and publishers that love to sign their releases. There’s much talk about the new comics boom that made it possible for many illustrators (and, why not, writers) to follow their dreams and finally work on something to which they have dedicated years of their lives. There’s lots of talk about how this industry should or should not be. And well… When attending massive local events like Comic Con, it becomes clear just what kind of industry this supposed Chilean comics industry is. It is a sweatshop.

There are two paths towards enjoying the blessings of this imaginary industry. The first one is to work inking Superman’s underwear for the gringos; the second is to become some sort of distributor (of gringo products). Everyone else is out of luck, and is in fact some sort of pseudo-unemployed dreamer that makes ends meet doing “something else”. It’s not just that there’s no place to establish oneself, and not enough readers. Truth is, this invisible Chilean comics industry doesn’t care about us, and probably thinks we’re ungrateful for not liking the dark corners they put us in.

You step into Estación Mapocho and see everything but comics: movie distributors showcasing their products, universities peddling their degrees, a giant battering ram next to some guys dressed up like roided-out hobbits. The typical. As you go on, you’re bombarded with superheroes, trailers, cartoons and products sold by those same distributors, highlighting that comics here is not about sequential art with panels and onomatopoeias, but is rather a heap of radioactive superpowers and masked vigilantes that make mad money. Events like Comic Con are not so much comics conventions as fan conventions, and that’s rather sad… So, you go on and stumble upon the comics store stands. If your wallet somehow managed to escape the big distributors’ tentacles, you can now buy comics about the characters you just shook hands with.

Further on, there’s Mordor: the section for übernerds, cosplayers, fan clubs and other mutants. If you are brave enough to cross this barrier of absolute dorkiness (and, ultimately, the greatest source of fun in this event), you might finally find the food stands and spend whatever you’ve got left. So far, so good. It’s all comics, nerds and food. However, after you’ve given all your money to this rational trickle-down pyramid, you come upon the famous “Chilean comics industry”. A handful of publishers and, before them, the smiling, penniless exhibitors hoping to earn enough money to pay their web hosting or buy themselves a stapler that won’t break down after a month… it’s sad being at the bottom of a money making machine and, even when you get the leftovers of the leftovers, they try to make you believe this is how the “comics industry” works.

We had a good time at the event and we’re grateful for the space and all, but we also feel like we weren’t needed. We can hope that in the future minds will be magically open and the rabble will have a privileged spot, that real spaces for comics will open up and this McDonaldized culture will once and for all disappear from the face of the Earth… but we know that won’t happen without a necessary and absolute revolution.

]]>https://mapachestudios.org/2013/06/25/un-mapache-suelto-en-hollywood-3/feed/0Commemorating the Free (the) Comic Book Dayhttps://mapachestudios.org/2013/05/13/conmemorando-el-dia-de-la-liberacion-del-comic/
https://mapachestudios.org/2013/05/13/conmemorando-el-dia-de-la-liberacion-del-comic/#respondMon, 13 May 2013 16:09:04 +0000http://mapachestudios.org/2013/05/13/conmemorando-el-dia-de-la-liberacion-del-comic-2/We participated in the “Free (the) Comic Book Day” in Espacio Shazam with a nice and quick “Free Comics” release. In addition, LeChuck wrote another of his classic manifesto-like exhortations. Here it is, in case you couldn’t get a copy.

LIBERATING COMICS FROM THE PAST CENTURY
step by step towards a free and independent comic

“A single candle will light his way. And we — The colony once named “Morlocks”… …Will never sup nor sleep nor scurry in darkness AGAIN!” – Marrow (X-Men Prime)

During the first half of the past century a tiny glint was born that, little by little, would illuminate a new path for sequential art: the comics fanzine.

Hand-made magazines that, by imitating and discussing their favorite masked heroes, fan the flames of a silent revolution.

Technology advances and so do fanzines. The mimeograph, a popular copy machine, allows the printing of micro-publications without needing a publisher and the world is filled with comics born from the authors’ hearts, with no censorship, no cuts, no alterations and no middlemen.

The mimeograph slowly becomes a tool of expression for counterculture, opening the door to never before seen content.

Thus underground comics are born, amidst paper, staples and scissors, writers and illustrators around the world plunge into adventure. Making their own magazines, making their way through the editorial world and forcing the large comics publishers to reinvent themselves.

Releases from small press publishers give comics new horizons by speaking from the fringes, paving the way for alternative narratives, social criticism, science fiction, comic strips and all kinds of stories that stand up against the ubiquitous tale of the masked vigilante.

Despite all efforts, alternative comics struggle against a ghetto just to lock themselves into an even smaller and more isolated place. Magazines move through narrow circles, stifling creators and ultimately discouraging production. Even so, this movement cannot be stopped. While large publishers seek new ways of restarting their universes and reusing their characters ad nauseam, independent comics deliver a healthy variety of fresh stories.

With the coming of the internet, the publication of independent comics skyrockets, allowing almost anybody to show their creations to the world. Experimentation in the sequential arts is freed from the constraints of printed paper and the creative possibilities become infinite.

Today we live in unique times: there are comics for all tastes. The idea that comics are a genre with rigid structures and recurring themes about superheroes is crumbling. Fanzine fairs take center stage all around the worlds; small publishers present themselves as “the true mainstream”, bringing their comics to all kinds of audiences.

Self-publishing has taken the world of comics by storm, and it is not slowing down. Collectivizing and seeking new channels of distribution, weaving networks through the internet, infecting and creating new authors, encouraging the common person to write construct their own stories. Suddenly, the idea of a giant publisher generating tons of content seems prehistoric, and collective initiatives become increasingly common.

The liberation of comics is just around the corner. It is not the comics industry that is taking the lead, obsessed as it is with content for mass audiences that always ends up being the same. It is not about huge print runs of magazines and book that all tell the same story. It is the massive production of creators and the absolute diversity of content that have become the cutting edge of graphic narratives. A motley mass of wild creators, shooting blindly into the sleeping crowd.

Writers and illustrators hardened by total obscurity emerge from the sewers to devour the world. They survived dictatorship and censorship. They kept on working in times of drought. They learned to forge universes with their own hands and love to teach others to do it themselves.

Meanwhile, the masked vigilante, a thousand times rehashed, sits in his secret fortress thinking of ways to get people to like him.

Otakus know how to have fun, it’s become a treat for us to attend their events and breathe some of that megadiverse and heterogeneous (but not heteronormative) freedom in the air. Though we’re completely ignorant of otaku matters, we just want to say we love you with this post.

The “Haru Matsuri 3” event had everything it needed to be a cool event: great organizers, an excellent place, free admission, free stands for penniless exhibitors, and all that fun teenage dorkiness… just the way we like it. The rest was a maelstrom of freaks, otakus, cosplayers, videogame characters and all that stuff that makes us cry of excitement.

But then we start feeling weird for giving you odd looks, or guilty for feeling awkward when we put on a pink wig. We take sneaky pictures of you being yourselves in this space, and we’re secretly glad you are.

We too were once weirdos who sought refuge from an alienating and violent educational system in comic book collections, cartoons, music and hobbies; we found a means of escape and of finding others like ourselves through harsh music, loud growls and sarcasm. This is what we see at these events and we feel at home, looking from our little stand with a smile on our faces, as freedom builds new frontiers.

]]>https://mapachestudios.org/2013/03/08/larga-vida-al-manga/feed/0The comic is a weapon charged with futurehttps://mapachestudios.org/2013/02/16/el-comic-es-un-arma-cargada-de-futuro/
https://mapachestudios.org/2013/02/16/el-comic-es-un-arma-cargada-de-futuro/#respondSat, 16 Feb 2013 14:22:28 +0000http://mapachestudios.org/2013/02/16/el-comic-es-un-arma-cargada-de-futuro-2/Today we woke up all combative and intellectual… as a present, we leave you this messy but lovingly made reflection.

Comics is art, and as such, it is rooted in creativity, the freest human tool of all. Consequently, we strongly believe there is no single way of making a comic. There is no set page number, format or target age, no professional degree that can tell you how it’s done, when you don’t even need to know how to write or draw. Much like you don’t need certificates for art, neither do you need them for comics. You are not more of a comic artist because you work for a big corporate publishing house or because you make DIY fanzines, let alone because of the quality or price of your printing paper, or you artist’s technique. A comic is a comic and that’s that. Good, bad, average, but still a comic.

In short, there are endless forms of creating. And even though there are wonderful techniques for making our creations look and read great; creation itself is much more mysterious than any of those theories and may surprise us unexpectedly. We don’t need (super) heroes, color covers, pinups, narrative acts, story arcs, cliffhangers, or any of these things which act as a crutch on creation, when comics are much more about creation itself than how we create.

We are so afraid of free creation! Dividing everything into panels, production guidelines and narrative acts, yet we’re always blown away by some experimental comic. This eagerness to classify and categorize renders out efforts fruitless. Instead, when we take other points of view, when we constantly move and seek new grounds, our work is renewed and refreshed.

Thus, today we rise against all that never made any sense to us. Since we know the audience reads what exists, and if it doesn’t exist, feels compelled to invent it, and that’s precisely where we come in (we were and are the audience): not to satisfy, but to create. We didn’t come to break the rules, but to follow our own, and to celebrate whoever follows their own heart in this endeavor. We want to see comics of all shapes and sizes. The last thing we want is to pose as experimental or groundbreakers, condemning the techniques we use and love (technique is technique and without technique there’s no technique, y’know). We don’t have lots of experience nor do we want to talk about it, we just draw and write; print and staple; we work with our hearts in our brains (or vice versa), gaining experience as we go along, but we will never be anything but ourselves.

In any case, let us make comics, again and again. Naturally, spontaneously, hypertheoretical, structured, chaotic, professional, amateur, in any way possible… but let us make them… nonstop. And maybe we’ll find some meaning to what we are saying with all these comics.